The invention relates to a solar cell comprising a semiconductor body containing a pn-junction, said body being provided with a reflection-reducing layer on the surface intended for incident light and having a rear contact on the opposite surface.
Silicon solar cells are provided with an anti-reflection layer on the surface intended for incident light to increase their cell conversion efficiency. This reflection-reducing layer comprises an insulating material and therefore must not, in known solar cell arrays, cover the front contact provided for connection to other cells. The thickness of the reflection-reducing layer is selected so that the minimum reflection occurs at approx. 600 nm. This is generally a .lambda./4 layer of an oxide with a refraction index of 1.4 to 2.4. The reflection-reducing layer reduces the reflectivity of the solar cell surface in the wavelength range between 0.3 and 1.2 .mu.m from approx. 30% to less than 10%, considerably increasing the efficiency of the solar cell.
A solar cell is already known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,336,648 where the reflection-reducing layer completely covers the metallic front contact of the solar cell and where the connection between the said front contact and connector stripes is achieved by ultrasonic welding, with the reflection-reducing layer being locally removed in the connection area by the welding operation.